Annual report a thing of the past

My last annual report in my current job was finally finished today at 8pm. Yes, that is 8:00 in the evening, four hours before midnight. And yes, I was in the office. It’s easier for me to concentrate on doing work stuff there, especially after hours when people aren’t around to pop in my door and ask “just one question” which evolves into a 30-min teachable moment about something that someone else is inheriting from me.

Anyway. The stupid annual report, as I’ve come to call it, is complete at 10 (or was it 12?) pages of text plus 8 pages of statistics. I’m feeling a bit inadequate when I think of the 25 page annual report that my predecessor left for me when I came here 17 years ago, but I simply didn’t have enough energy to write that kind of treatise.

What I really wanted to was do a simple, “We came, we bought, we checked in, we cataloged, we processed, we bound, we paid for stuff, and then we left.” But somehow that didn’t seem like a very good idea.

I leave tomorrow for a trip to Denver, where I will be making a presentation and visiting other libraries, then flying off to San Jose for a second conference. While I’ll be reimbursed for most of it, it’s a significant cash outlay with two back to back meetings, eating out and traveling to and from airports. The good part is that I am not taking any work with me and don’t plan to dial into the office from away. Why would I when I could be out exploring a new place?

When I get back, I’m into the final stretch of time at my current job. The time is flying by – especially now that the annual report is behind me.